Just read a mind-boggling entry on the Core77 blog. Designers: read this post, “Design changes in real hotels modeled after virtual ones” (Link), and feel free to explain this class of inbred thinking:
If you want to spruce up your hotel chain, you could hire a team of designers…or you could sign on to Second Life.
Aloft Hotels, a subsidiary of Starwood (and sibling to the swanky W Hotels) has been implementing feedback from Second Life users on how to revamp their virtual hotel. For several months they’ve been redesigning everything from color palettes to actual space layouts based on what SL users have been telling them, and today, May 8th, is launch day.
Why is this notable? Because Aloft is planning on implementing the design changes in their real hotels, too. Fate is a cruel mistress, friends; four years of design school, and we designers may be put out of work by a bunch of transgender teenagers with batwings for ears.
I can’t express how embarrassed I am for the entire design community. Words fail me.
Perhaps this poor guy is really not aware that many professionals are employed by Second Life development companies. And maybe he doesn’t know that some people have put as many years into learning design on this platform as he put into learning design himself. It could be that he was too upset to consider that many companies revise products based on consumer feedback, and that doing so and then announcing, “You asked and we listened!” and the like is just everyday marketing. It seems he doesn’t know anything about Second Life demographics.
I called him a “poor guy” because . . . well, it must be scary to have what he views as unexpected competition coming from an unfamiliar direction. I think we should excuse the condescending tone. It sounds like the voice of a guy who is temporarily worried that all that makes him a designer is a piece of paper from a school, and now here people with no piece of paper are going to come and take away his work.
When I heard about the new sculpted prims we’re getting in Second Life (which you import from Maya), I worried temporarily that guys like him were now going to just waltz in and do the work in SL that I spent years learning to do. I imagine he will get over his momentary upset the same way I did, by realizing that it isn’t about what platform or tools you use to design things, or what you went through to learn to use them. If you have the ability to design, it doesn’t matter where you learned it, and it does not go away. You can learn new tools and compete with anyone.
And, csven, the OP’s comment didn’t reflect on the design community in general — certainly not on you!
All I can say is that I’m glad I parted ways with Core77.
No csven you got it all wrong. It is painfully obvious the target market for Aloft hotesl ARE :
See4 years of design school did teach me somthing!
I prefer to not joke when someone uses a term like “transgender” in a way suggesting it’s an insult. There’s already a bit too much bigotry, racism and intolerance in the world for my taste.
As it turns out, there are a number of very intelligent and articulate transgender individuals using Second Life. There are also people with Asperger’s syndrome and severe physical disabilities and other challenges who use Second Life for a lot of positive reasons. Sometimes their challenge is only having to deal with how people in the real world treat them because they’re somehow different.
Go read this, an example of how SL is used by some people: “The Nine Souls of Wilde Cunningham” (Link) and tell me it’s okay to be arrogant (as the Core77 author is in this entry) and to casually insult others in the process.
A joke is one thing. This was more than a joke imo.